Article.
Essentially, all copies of Skyrim are going to be hardwired directly back to Bethesda over the internet so that when bugs or balancing issues start popping up, Bethesda can fix them and everyone gets a patch for the bug within a few hours of its discovery.
Essentially, this allows for Bethesda to patch the game's master data file (that is, Skyrim.ESM) on the fly. Engine bugs will still need to be patched in the more traditional manner, though.